Making a difference: Hope in the Hospital

Two city youths J. Prasanna Kumar and M.N. Ajmal Hussain volunteer to help patients and their attendants in the Government Hospital

August 27, 2014 08:05 pm | Updated 08:05 pm IST - MADURAI

M.N. Ajmal Hussain and J. Prasana Kumar. Photo: R. Ashok

M.N. Ajmal Hussain and J. Prasana Kumar. Photo: R. Ashok

They are neither doctors nor patients and have nothing to do with the Government Rajaji Hospital. Yet they are spotted there daily from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. guiding people through the maze that GH is, holding the hand of some elderly, helping a fatigued mother by carrying her sick child, counselling or consoling distressed family members or arranging units of blood for someone in need.

Their work is never fixed. The demands of the day vary and J.Prasanna Kumar and M.N.Ajmal Hussain, both 28 years, willingly take on the task wearing a smile. Ask them why. “GH is the right place to do service,” says Prasanna. “Everybody is suffering from something here and we are getting a great opportunity to help,” adds Ajmal.

While Prasanna, a delivery executive in a telemarketing job has been a permanent fixture at GH for the last eight years, Ajmal, a freelancer web designer joined him last year. The two make a perfect team in helping patient and theirs attendants. Over a period of time, the two have gained the love and respect of not only the patients and their families but also the staff at GH, which is like a lifeline for the sick, injured and the abandoned.

Hospitals, after all, are not the best of places to hang out. The Out Patients Department is crammed with people, the Emergency is intimidating, the wards are teeming with groaning and moaning patients, the corridors are confusing and the staff supremely busy. The stress and anxiety people experience is understandable.

It was one such occasion eight years ago when Prasanna took his ailing mother to GH for treatment. He says he felt at sea as much time was lost in finding the department, meeting the doctor, getting the tests done and standing in queue for medicines. The visit was an eye-opener as he saw numerous poor, helpless and illiterate patients and people groping to find their way and the attention of doctors.

That night Prasanna decided what he wanted to do. “I just wanted to help those people without interfering in anybody’s work.”

The next morning at GH did not take him long to spot simple villagers coming to the hospital for the first time. There was this old lady whose husband required heart surgery and she was too stressed out. “I just held her hand and told her not to worry”. The simple assurance from a total stranger calmed her down. Prasanna then led her to the cardiology department and met her every day till her husband was operated upon and discharged.

“It left me with a satisfied feeling,” says Prasanna of his first good deed. From then on, it became a habit with him to reach GH early in the morning to help patients. “Most people come with the fear of the disease. I always try to give them emotional support and mental strength,”” he says.

The cancer, HIV, accident and burns patients and their families find it most difficult. Majority of them come from the rural outskirts, foregoing their daily wage job. If the treatment is a prolonged one, they travel back home 100 to 200 km every week to borrow money and return. In poor families, it often gets difficult for the attendant to arrange for food and accommodation near the hospital.

Ajmal and Prasanna have chipped in many times to help such people. “I feel sad when helpless women come to us with their gold ornaments in exchange of money,” says Ajmal.

The two refrain from any money dealings in their service. We do not take donations. Our parents support us fully. When patients are discharged, the happy family members want to treat us with cool drinks but we don’t accept even that, he adds.

Both have mastered the art of counselling. They have also established a network of college friends who are willing to help in exigencies. The doctors here, they say, are so overloaded that they simply treat the symptoms but fail to consider the patient, the person. “”We step in to acknowledge their pain and emotions and offer mental support and it means a lot to them, says Prasanna.

He talks about a 15 year-old-boy who was admitted to GH with liver failure. When he passed away last month, Prasanna was the first person to be informed by the child’s mother about the death. “That is the kind of bonding we develop,” he notes.

A hospital isn't a place normally associated with youths like them. But the number of people they help each day is only growing and so are the issues they deal with on a daily basis. Every person needs a shoulder to cry on or a person to talk to. “”We are the stress busters for them. Besides, they also know they can depend on us for any help, says Ajmal.

Being in hospital can be quite isolating, points out Prasanna. The lack of support comes as a shocker to many attendants of patients and that is why they work with everybody on everything sharing all possible information related to treatment and cure. The real reward, he says, comes when people thank us for treating them as a real person.

It is also challenging, says Ajmal, because many times people do not understand what we do.” An old father once told us, when we didn’t have anybody to talk to, you helped us. You did not make us feel that we were just names of patients recorded in a file.”

(Making a difference is a fortnightly column about ordinary people and events that leave an extraordinary impact on us. E-mail soma.basu@thehindu.co.in to tell her about someone you know who is making a difference)

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